The following abbreviations are herewith defined, at least some of which are referred to in the following description associated with the prior art and the present invention.
AISAlarm Indication SignalingANCPAccess Node Control ProtocolBRASBroadband Remote Access ServerBTVBroadcast TelevisionCCContinuity checkCPECustomer Premise EquipmentDADestination AddressDSLDigital Subscriber LineDSLAMDigital Subscriber Line Access MultiplexerEMSElement Management SystemIEEEInstitute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersIPInternet ProtocolIPTVInternet Protocol TelevisionL2CPLayer 2 Control ProtocolLBLoopbackLBRLoopback ReplyLTLine Termination (customer-side of a DSLAM)NTNetwork Termination (network-side of a DSLAM)NMSNetwork Management SystemOAMOperation, Administration and MaintenanceOLTOptical Line TerminationONTOptical Network TerminationPONPassive Optical NetworkRGWResidential GatewayTLVType-Length-ValueTVTelevision
Referring to FIGS. 1-2 (PRIOR ART), there are two block diagrams of a traditional access network 100 with Ethernet-based DSL aggregation (e.g., see DSL Forum TR-101). The traditional access network 100 (e.g., IPTV network 100) includes a regional network 102 which is coupled to an edge router 104 (e.g., BRAS 104 with ports 105) which is coupled to one or more aggregation nodes 106 (with ports 106a and 106b). The aggregation node(s) 106 are connected by an Ethernet access network 108 to multiple access nodes 110 (e.g., DSLAMs 110 each of which includes a bridge-on-network-interface card 113 which has exterior-facing NT ports 113a and interior-facing NT ports 113b and a bridge-on-line card 115 which has interior-facing LT ports 115a and exterior facing LT ports 115b). The DSLAMs 110 are connected to multiple CPEs 112 (RGWs 112) which in turn are associated with multiple customers 114 where there is normally one customer 114 associated with one CPE 112. In addition, the traditional access network 100 has a NMS 120 which is directly connected to the BRAS 104 and is connected to the DSLAMs 110 via EMSs 122. Typically, an operator 124 (e.g., customer service representative 124) would interact with the NMS 120 to monitor and control the operations of the various components such as the BRAS 104 and the DSLAMs 110 which are part of the access network 100. The basic architecture and functionality of the traditional access network 100 is well known to those skilled in the art but for additional details about this type of architecture reference is made to DSL Forum TR-101 Ethernet-based DSL aggregation dated April 2006 (the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein).
The BRAS 104 could be used to transmit BTV traffic 118 (multiple TV channels 118) at the Ethernet level (level 2) downstream via the aggregation node(s) 106, the Ethernet access network 108, the DSLAMs 110, and the CPEs 112 to the customers 114. In this IPTV application, the operator 124 may want to know if the CPEs 112 are experiencing an unacceptable packet loss at the Ethernet level which would adversely affect the customers 114 viewing of a broadcast TV channel. Today, the operator 124 can determine the packet loss experiences of the CPEs 112 by instructing the BRAS 104 to send standardized loopback messages 126 towards the CPEs 112 which then send standardized loopback reply messages 128 back to the BRAS 104. The standardized loopback reply messages 128 contain packet/bytes counter information which is used by the BRAS 104 to compute packet/byte loss, in both downstream and upstream directions. However, if this scheme is used to measure the packet loss measurements for all of the CPEs 112, then the BRAS 104 will be inundated with many standardized loopback reply messages 128 which are received each of the CPEs 112. This is problematic because the BRAS 104 commonly interfaces with thousands of CPEs 112 and as a result would have to process and store the packet loss information for all of the loopback reply messages 128 which are received from the CPEs 112. In addition, this scheme causes memory and processing scalability problems at the BRAS 104. Alternatively, the operator 124 could perform this test by having the BRAS 104 send the standardized loopback messages 126 to the bridge-on-line cards 115 and in particular to the exterior facing LT ports 115b within the DSLAMs 110 behind which are located the CPEs 112. But, the BRAS 104 would still suffer from the aforementioned problems because it still needs to process and store the packet loss information for all of the loopback reply messages 128 which are received from the DSLAM's exterior facing LT ports 115b. Accordingly, there has been a need and still is a need for addressing this shortcoming and other shortcomings that are associated with the traditional access network 100. This need and other needs are satisfied by the present invention.